Students To Ask P.M. For Apology

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30289, 15 November 1963, Page 16

Students To Ask P.M. For Apology

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 14. The Victoria University Students’ Association will ask the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) for an unqualified apology or for substantiation of comments he made at an election meeting in Levin last night. The president of the association, Mr P. Blizard, announced this tonight.

The Prime Minister’s statement that a group of student representatives received by him had “talked socialism and neo-communistic ideals about defence, nuclear bombs, ban-the-bomb marches and all the rest” was a misrepresentation of the views of the association, which was a non-poli-tical body, said Mr Blizard. Questions asked by the group were:— What measures would the Government take to stop the French Government from making nuclear tests? What precautions would the Government take to protect the lives and property of those in New Zealand's dependencies in the South Pacific in the event of the French Government going ahead with testing plans? Was the Prime Minister of the opinion that the nuclear testing by the French Government could be construed as a safe excuse by Russia, the United States and other powers to restart nuclear testing?

Mr Blizard said the association also regretted that Mr Holyoake chose to link the behaviour of an independent group of students who attended his Wellington election meeting with the act of an officially-sponsored and recognised student delegation. The association would have to ask for an apology or substantiation "by reference to fact, rather than Mr Holyoake’s opinion.” Legal Advice Earlier Mr Blizard had said legal advice was being sought about a comment by the Prime Minister at the meeting. Mr Holyoake claimed university students had tried to break up his meeting in Wellington. He said fiot long before his meeting he had given the students the courtesy of an interview. They had talked with him for an hour on topics like ban-the-bomb and Socialist and neo-Communist matters.

“I was very tolerant and they repaid me by trying to break up my meeting by the use of sheer destructive noise.” They were an “utter disgrace” to themselves, their university, and the “Labour and Communist parties.” “At this stage, we are merely making inquiries with our solicitor,” Mr Blizard had said. “We don’t want to take action if it can be avoided.”

The association, in a statement protesting about Mr Holyoake’s comments, said:— “According to our information, there were six students sitting in a line at the front of the hall. They were there for two reasons—to ask Mr Holyoake to clarify the Government’s past policy on overseas borrowing and to challenge his often-repeated claims that all students are better off under the new fees and bursary regulations.” The statement claims Mr Holyoake failed to answer the first question satisfactorily and ignored the second. It says the students cannot understand how six people could break up a meeting attended by more than 900 of Mr Holyoake’s supporters, eight policemen and “an apparently satisfied chairman.” “We also refute his claim that the students were disorderly in their questions." the statement says. “We refer Mr Holyoake to the comment by the sitting member for Wellington Central (Mr D. J. Riddiford), who said just before the meeting closed that all questions had been good humoured. The Prime Minister apparently agreed with this.”